andy and i went to croma a couple of days ago; i think it's relatively new. all in all it was about what i expected: average but inoffensive. andy started w/ the tomato/mozzarella and i had the baked mushrooms with garlic butter, arugula, and parmesan. like the spinach pizza we had for an entree, everything was quite bland. is this a new thing? we went to sonsie a couple of months ago (in a temporary fit of insanity otherwise known as it was cold and we didn't want to go far for non-ethnic food in the back bay) and both the pasta dishes we got from there were also extremely bland. or maybe our taste buds are just going in our old age. in any case, the english toffee pudding (a la mode) was better, although again not incredible. the ambience was okay: brick, white tiles, overall not particularly inviting. our waitress wasn't bad, though. for this type of place i'd have to go w/ cambridge, 1 in harvard sq, even though it doesn't bowl me over either. still, all in all i guess a half-decent, mid-range restaurant in the back bay is better than nothing. side note: the reviews on croma's website strongly reinforce my already firm distrust of every boston publications' food reviews. i never did get around to posting on winnie and my blog about lala rokh. i'm going to have to agree w/ winnie on this: what is the hype about? overpriced and two-dimensional. i know i say that about a lot of places, but it's true. i'm of the opinion that ethnic places particularly have to justify inflated prices more so than french or italian-based restaurants. i mean, for c. $15 for a spinach and kidney beans stew it had better be more interesting than just spinach and kidney beans thrown into a pot of water w/ some salt. and it wasn't. while i'm on the topic, the helmand (near the cambridgeside gallery) was also overhyped for me. it was okay, but not much more interesting than your average decent indian restaurant.